POETRY

Necessary Solitude, 2000

NECESSARY SOLITUDE TO MAKE ART.

To be solitary, to make art, is to be with myself, open, alone and gathering
myself together whatever it is I struggle with and whatever it is that I am moved by - to put it into an art form. The pleasure of moving the paint, words, clay or sound; whatever the material is. Even if I am learning terrible things about the way I feel. That is what I like to do - it is a mysterious process and the subject doesn’t matter. I bring myself to where I am. That feels like solitude to me. I use that voice we all have and the capacity to understand ourselves in a way that makes us conscious. The Buddhist calls it enlightenment and I think that art making is the state that sets us back home where we belong. Aware. So art should never be censored. It should be learned from for it is the gift of consciousness to ourselves and each other and includes joy and pain and lets us rest in harmony with the universe and ourselves where we belong.